ABSTRACT Objective: To identify factors associated with not attempting resuscitation. Methods: A cross-sectional study conducted at the emergency department of a teaching hospital. The sample consisted of 285 patients; in that, 216 were submitted to cardiopulmonary resuscitation and 69 were not. The data were collected by means of the in-hospital Utstein Style. To compare resuscitation attempts with variables of interest we used the χ2 test, likelihood ratio, Fisher exact test, and analysis of variance (p